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Obama has started off blaming runaway Bush/McCain free market deregulation for the current economic situation. This is has been a recurring refrain for over a week, and it appears to have worked. But is it true? I don’t recall Bush making any big deregulatory leaps; at least not in the financial sector. Didn’t the post-Enron legislation represent “the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt?”

One of McCain’s habits that has troubled conservatives in the past is his overreliance on regulation (I recall he really went after Big Pharma in the GOP debates earlier this year). I understand why this talking point is working for democrats, I just question whether there’s a shred of truth in it. What did we deregulate, if anything, and how did that contribute? McCain should fight back on this, but he’s shown himself to shirk from a fight more than once so far during this campaign.

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Nice that McCain is starting to hit back on the Fannie Mae stuff, but he doesn’t sound confident on this economic stuff. He sounds nervous and/or tired. Obama is far better at making it sound like he knows what’s going on right now, and he always talks about “working families,” which probably resonates by itself.

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Ooh, they’re both getting snippy now and pointing fingers. McCain sounds better when he plays the somber cheerleader and doesn’t try to explain what’s happening. But he’s breathing too heavily and sounds oooooold. I don’t expect that’s helping him. This format emphasizes Obama’s youth and McCain’s age. Maybe Obama should’ve taken McCain up on his offer for s series of town hall meetings. McCain might have been dead by now, on this evidence.

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McCain’s fielding the question about which sacrifices he’ll ask for. I wish he could just say, “Many government departments simply aren’t necessary. I will start by axing the entire Dept. of Education.” Alas, you don’t get elected by telling people which programs you will cut, so that answer has to be vague.

But I think the question’s subtext was a call for some big new government program that will mobilize people to feel good about themselves. This is progressive meat and potatoes. And here’s Obama talking about various youth corps projects.

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McCain needs to explain that these tax cuts “to CEOs” and “big corporations” are across-the-board tax cuts for everyone and not targeted cuts. He should say, “I don’t discriminate on tax cuts. I don’t play class warfare. We’re all in this together, and here in America you don’t get punished for being successful.” Well, there, at least he said part of that: tax cuts for everybody. And he had a smile on his face, too. He seems to be a little more sprightly now.

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Obama’s explaining his tax-cut on “95%” of Americans. McCain needs to explain that half of those people don’t pay incomes taxes at all right now. Obama just seemed to also suggest that the Bush tax cut is partly responsible for the current crisis. How? He comes as off as very sincere and confident even when he prevaricates. Maybe that’s how he and Biden found each other.

McCain did well exposing Obama’s forgotten 2004 tax cut promise.

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I don’t like it when either candidate accuses the other of voting against something x times, because that number usually includes a lot of collateral damage — that whatever is at issue was not the main part of the bill and largely irrelevant to the vote. This would be best fixed by preventing congress from these massive bills that cover too many topics.

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Obama just said parents will be required by federal law to have health care for their children, but didn’t explain what kind of measure will be used to enforce that, as McCain said. Is this like how car insurance is required for car owners? Maybe Obama’s gov’t will revoke parenting licenses, or impound children who aren’t insured. How does Obama expect people who still can’t afford the health insurance to do so if he’s fining them for not having it?

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I think McCain wins nearly every foreign policy point, but Obama’s supporters will think Obama won. These are just differences between the two. I thought Obama effectively attacked McCain’s joke about Iran, but that’s not the kind of candidate Obama so often talks about being.

I would like to never hear McCain do his “I looked in Putin’s eyes and saw K-G-B” bit again

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Closing questions: Obama is saying that the American Dream — his story — has been ‘diminishing’ over the last 8 years. The examples he gives:

• wages and incomes are going down
• people are going bankrupt because they have health issues and no health care
• bright kids can’t go to college because they have no money

How exactly are these aspects of the American Dream worse off now than when Obama was coming of age, during the 1960s and 1970s? The wage index has skyrockted, and college enrollments are off the charts despite the costs. Was health care really better in the 1970s? Does anyone buy this?

McCain counters this ersatz gloominess with optimism and fight, calling on his “belief in America.” Hopefully that still resonates with someone.

No big stories tonight. Previously, Obama’s recent surge in the polls has plateaued and contracted a little. I wouldn’t expect this debate to make much a difference.

We’re going to be hearing a lot this month about Obama’s long line of Chicago radicals: terrorist William Ayers, crook Tony Reszko, and maybe even the communist stalwart, Alice Palmer, who opened the Ill. State Senate door for Obama.

Tags:   debate · McCain · ObamaNo Comments